Bekipay is a town and commune () in

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

. It belongs to the

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

of Mitsinjo, which is a part of

Boeny Region Boeny is a region in northwestern Madagascar. It borders Sofia Region to the northeast, Betsiboka to the south and Melaky to the southwest. The capital of the region is Mahajanga, and the population was 931,171 in 2018. The area of Boeny is . A ...

. The population of the commune was estimated to be approximately 14,000 in 2001 commune

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

. Only primary schooling is available. The majority 50% of the population of the commune are farmers, while an additional 48% receives their livelihood from raising livestock. The most important crops are

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

and

raffia palm Raffia palms are members of the genus ''Raphia''. The Malagasy name is derived from ' "to squeeze juice". The genus contains about twenty species of palms native to tropical regions of Africa, and especially Madagascar, with one species ('' R ...

, while other important agricultural products are

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

and

cassava ''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava, manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes. Although ...

. Services provide employment for 2% of the population.

References and notes

Populated places in Boeny {{Boeny-geo-stub